Shimmers
by Fortune Spirit
Summary: It's the holiday season, and something's wrong with Sonic. As he tries to avoid making his friends worry about him, one rival will accidently discover that the Blue Blur isn't as fine as he seems... (Slight Sonadow)


Shimmers

He sat, staring at the gleaming lights. Brilliant bursts of crimson, jade, azure, silver and gold twinkled on the tree like the stars in the night sky. Baubles of various colours adorned the branches, a few ornaments shaped like glittery icicles and golden, holly-coved bells were dotted here and there; festive snakes of gold and red tinsel were coiled all around the boughs. Best of all, a massive star sat atop the tree made out of yellow glass, glitter shining within its depths, reflecting the lights. They were all bright, dazzling colours that were almost hypnotic, keeping him in place, keeping him staring at their beauty. He was mesmerised. So much so that he almost missed his brother calling him from the hallway. Almost.

He shook his head, turning his back to the tree, "Coming!" he called, grabbing his red and white scarf on the way out of the front room.

In the hallway, his brother's twin tails flicked behind him excitedly. His yellow and white fur stood out against the dark walls of the hall and he wore a bright green jacket. Around his neck was wrapped a matching scarf and on his feet were white-tipped, red shoes. His baby blue eyes beamed up at him as he stepped up beside the young fox.

Like his brother, he also wore a jacket – but his was a deep red instead. His red shoes were decorated with white straps, secured in place by a golden buckle. As he swathed his own scarf around his neck, he reached down to ruffle the fur on top of his brother's head.

"So, where to Tails?" He asked, flashing the fox a smile.

Tails giggled, throwing his brother an accusatory glance as he fixed his fur, "Vanilla's place. We promised Cream and Cheese that we would help them build a snowman. Remember, Sonic?"

Sonic pretended to think for a moment, dragging out a really long "Hmmmm…" as he opened the front door.

"Sonic!"

He couldn't help but chuckle at Tails' pouty face as the fox crossed his arms and playfully glared up at him. He turned to lock the door before lightly jabbing the yellow fox with his elbow.

"Of course I remember!" He chuckled, "Cream said she'd make cookies too! I love her baking."

"Stop! You're making me hungry!"

As they walked on through the snow, Sonic took in the way the sun made the snow glitter as if it were made of millions of tiny diamonds. A few puddles, frozen over from the night before, flashed back his refection; a cobalt and peach hedgehog with emerald eyes. He was aware of his quills swaying in the brisk wind, but he barely felt the cold. He never really did anymore. His chaos energy burned inside of him, making him incapable of feeling the chilling winds or icy snow. He missed it, the freezing feeling that made him feel alive in the winter, the feeling of the wind enveloping him as he ran.

He couldn't tell Tails, couldn't make him worry, especially at this time of the year. He couldn't make any of them worry. He didn't _like _people worrying about him to begin with. But something was wrong with him, that he knew. What he didn't know, was what…

…

"Hey Tails, Sonic!" Cream ran over to meet them as they approached the house, her trusty chao, Cheese, not far behind.

Over her usual orange dress, the young cream and auburn coloured rabbit wore a fluffy blue jumper. She had on yellow and orange shoes and a yellow scarf. In place of Cheese's red bowtie, the little blue and yellow chao wore a tiny red scarf, which steamed out behind him as he flew.

When Cream stopped beside them to give Tails a hug, Cheese flew up on pink wings to land on Sonic's shoulder. For a moment, the young chao froze before nuzzling his cheek and making soft, comforting cooing noises in his ear. He knew. Cheese knew something was wrong with him. Afterall, chao could sense chaos as well as himself, Knuckles and Shadow could.

They could sense as well as Knuckles and Shadow…

'Shit…'

He'd have to avoid those two, at all costs. Shadow would be easy to stay away from. Afterall, he did threaten to break his arm last time they saw each other. He'd always hated him. Nothing new there.

Knuckles… Knuckles was a different story. As long as he stayed on Angel Island, he'd be fine but… Tails wanted to invite him over for Christmas. How would he be able to avoid the echidna for the entire holiday?

He blinked. No point worrying about it now, afterall, Knuckles hadn't even agreed to spend Christmas with them yet. No. He'd focus on spending time with Tails and Cream and hope that Cheese keeps quiet about his problem. Thankfully, Sonic knew that chao were a lot smarter than people gave them credit for, and Cheese shot Sonic a knowing looking before drifting over to sit in the snow beside Cream.

The two younger mobians, ignorant to the small exchange between hedgehog and chao, were kneeling in the snow, rolling it up to make the snowman's base. While they were busy, Sonic slipped away inside the house to see if he could find a scarf and a hat. On his way inside, he stopped by the kitchen to say "Hi" to Cream's mother (and check on the progress of those cookies, but that's neither here nor there) and he quickly found an old hat. The scarf was a little trickier, but he eventually asked to borrow one from Vanilla and returned outside with the items. By the time he had reached outside again, Cream and Tails were placing the head on top of the snowman. They called Sonic over to help sculpt the cone-shaped ears before placing the hat on top and draping the scarf around its neck. Tails, it seems, had already found some stones and twigs, and while they were adding a face to the snowman, Sonic pushed the snow up halfway around the base to act as a tail. As a finishing touch, Cream added some twigs to either side of its face for whiskers and they all stood back to take in their handiwork.

As they talked, Sonic once again found himself drawn in by the enticing glitter of the snow on the snowman (or snowcat, as Cream called it). The slight shine to the frosty stones as its eyes, the snow dusting on the "whiskers" and the pristine whiteness of the body was enchanting. Absentmindedly, he would nod and hum when the others spoke to him, but he didn't really take in what they said. He wasn't sure how long he stayed there, staring at the snowcat, what was said by his two younger friends or when Vanilla brought out the cookies, but by the time Tails grabbed his hand and they waved goodbye to the two rabbits and Cheese, it was night.

With a cookie in hand, Sonic walked alongside Tails, a little disturbed that he manged to get distracted so often today. With a frown, he noticed that he could not see the moon or stars through the thick covering of clouds overhead and realised that he was doing it again. He sighed, albeit not too loudly, and made a mental note to focus more tomorrow. He didn't understand; he wasn't usually like this.

…

The next morning, Sonic was relived to hear that Knuckles had politely declined their invitation – er, _Tails'_ invitation – to join them for the holidays. He tried to play off his cheerful "Yes!" as just being excited about Christmas, which Tails thankfully believed. At least Knuckles wouldn't be around to sense anything wrong with him for a while. It didn't remove the problem, but it bought him some time to figure out how to fix what was wrong with him. At least now he could relax.

All he had to do was stop zoning out and ensure that no one found any problems with his usual attitude. But as he glanced out the window and saw the branches of the leafless trees swaying in the wind, he gulped.

Easier said than done…

…

"Shadow, come on! It'll be fun!"

"Your idea of 'fun', Rouge, is stealing sparkly things – you might as well be a damn magpie, not a bat." Shadow turned to glare at his partner.

Her fur was the same colour as the dreadful snow outside. For once, she wasn't actually wearing her usual garb – instead she was wearing, what Shadow hesitated to call, a white and pink jumper. The stupid thing didn't even go that far down, it was essentially a crop top. There was no way it was practical, though he didn't suppose that's what she was going for. She still wore her white, knee-high boots with the pink hearts on the toe of each though. She batted her eyelashes at him as she placed her hands on her hips, aquamarine eyes glaring at him good-humouredly. Her pink eyeshadow standing out against her blank fur.

She shook her head, "Don't be a grump. We won't stay long."

"No thanks." He growled, turning his glare back to the window.

In the reflection, his own crimson eyes glared back at him. Onyx and vermillion fur framed his sour face, but he ignored it. He wasn't really looking at anything outside, not that there was anything to really see, but he didn't want to face Rouge and allow her to drag him into her schemes. So instead he silently watched the snow fall from the dark sky, ignoring the irritating bat.

He thought he'd gotten out of it too, until Rouge waggled a hand in front of his face. He turned to raise a questioning, if exasperated, eyebrow at her. She smiled back at him, a shit-eating grin that reminded him of a certain blue-furred speedster who happened to annoy him even more than Rouge did. He still wondered how that was possible.

When she didn't respond, he snapped, "What?"

"Well…" she started, the grin never leaving her face, "Maria wanted you to make sure all of the people of Earth were happy or whatever…"

Shadow's glare hardened.

"And, it would make _me_ happy if you came with me tonight."

She was met with a long stretch of silence.

"No."

"Oh, come on!" Rouge huffed, "I'll give your chaos emerald back."

Shadow's eyes widened at that. He reached beside him where he knew he'd left his emerald only to be greeted by empty space. He sent a scathing look at Rouge.

"Fine, you thieving bat." he hissed out after a strained pause.

"Great!" She beamed, "You'll get your emerald ten minutes into the party, you have to stay that long at least. We leave in a couple of hours."

She sent a wink his way as she strutted off to the door. Shadow merely rolled his eyes and turned back to the window to stop himself from dashing over and outright breaking the bat's neck.

He sighed, 'How bad could it be, really…?'

…

There weren't many decorations to put up for the party since they had already done them days ago. Instead, Sonic sat in the kitchen with Tails, planning what food they'd need. Tails reluctantly agreed to getting chilly dogs for the buffet as long as Sonic ran out to get them himself, which he agreed to with incredible enthusiasm. With Sonic settled, they were going to go into town and pick up some crisps, sausage rolls and something sweet. Afterall, it wasn't about the food, it was about getting together with friends. That, and they were running short of rings this year.

So far Sonic was finding it hard to stick to his plan. Just the mention of chilly dogs had his mind wondering. Then, after Tails got his attention again, he almost lost himself to the sight of the snow falling past the window behind Tails. Trying to stay focused was proving to be a problem. It was almost frustrating, and he'd be mad at himself if he could focus on one thing long enough to be. Every time he tried to mentally berate himself, he'd even get distracted from that! He was slowly losing his mind, but it was hard to tell how far he'd gone with his flip-floppy attention span. Of course, it had never been _great_, but it never got this bad! And he could focus when he needed too, like when he had to pay attention during Eggman's attacks. What if…

What if he couldn't focus next time he attacked? What if he couldn't stop Eggman and he failed everyone? What would the world think? What would _Tails _think?

Cold dread flooded his senses. He couldn't let that happen, he refused to let it happen. He had to find out what was wrong with him, but he didn't want to bother any of his friends with his problems either. He'd do it himself and fix the problem as soon as he could. First, he just had to figure out what was wrong.

…

The Christmas eve party came around quicker than Sonic thought. Then again, he did zone out looking at their Christmas tree again.

'Those damn lights!'

By the time he came back to reality, Tails was answering the door. The first to arrive? The pink-furred, red clad hedgehog known as Amy Rose. Her dazzling jade eyes landed on him and she gave a friendly wave. At one point in time, Sonic would have run at the sight of her. But since the war, the obsessed, self-proclaimed girlfriend of the Blue Blur had calmed down a bit, matured more. She had actually calmed down enough to realise that Sonic was not interested in her advances. Since then, they had become good friends, but nothing more. It was… nice that way. He flashed her one of his famous smiles and went over to greet her properly.

A few minutes later, most of the guests were already there. Cream was talking to Amy in the kitchen. Making more cookies, Sonic supposed. Vector was trying to impress Vanilla… but failing quite horribly, to Charmy and Sonic's amusement. Espio just stood by, shaking his head – the purple chameleon seemed stoic, but Sonic knew him to be a valiant fighter, a brave ally and a fairly close friend too, so it didn't bother him. Cheese sat on his shoulder. The young chao seemed determined to stay by his side, but Sonic didn't mind the company.

Silver, Blaze and Marine, unfortunately could not make it. They were spending Christmas in the Sol Dimension. Knuckles was, of course, up on Angel Island, though Sonic never heard the explanation that Tails gave – the snow had distracted him again. Mighty and Ray were also busy, but they said they'd stop by around New Year's Eve.

Tails was answering the door while Sonic finished up his conversation with Espio. However, when he turned to greet Rouge he almost vomited right there. Beside the flirtatious bat lurked an incredibly pissed off looking Shadow. He felt Cheese stiffen on his shoulder. Sonic waved and called a hasty "Hey!" before retreating to the kitchen for a glass of water.

It seems that Cream and Amy had already joined the others for they were no longer there and, from the sweet aroma in the kitchen, they had indeed made cookies. Sonic was tempted to go back out and swipe one, but he couldn't risk it. He couldn't let Shadow get close enough to sense his energy. Then again, would he care? Probably not. He likely wouldn't even bring it up if he felt it, right? Right. He wanted him dead anyway, so if his energy truly was hurting him, he wouldn't even bat an eyelid. Sonic tried to relax at those thoughts, but it was difficult.

Was Shadow truly that heartless? One part of him wanted to believe that he wasn't, but the other half wished that, at this very moment, he would be.

He took a deep breath and slipped out of the kitchen, hoping to get to the front door without being seen. Sonic was known for his keenness to always be moving so no one would be confused why he suddenly stepped out. Although his want to run has not been as strong as it usually was these past few weeks, he really felt like he needed to get out of here. Now.

Before he realised it, he'd zoned out again and he managed to bump right into the one person he was trying to avoid. He stared at him, incredulous for a moment, as if not believing his rival was really here by the door. When did he even move over to here? Damn it, if he'd been paying attention, he'd surely have noticed. What he did notice was the brightness of his rival's eyes, stained the colour of blood. His fur, darker than the night itself, only broken up by streaks of more blood-like intensity. The plume of white fur on his chest looked inviting and soft…

He snapped out of it. Shit, how long had he zoned out?! Judging by the glare on Shadow's face: too long. Racking his brain for an excuse or apology that would not form, he instead let out a choked sound and zipped away out the door as fast as he could.

As he ran, he couldn't help but think back to that moment when he was frozen to the spot, staring.

'What the fuck was that?! That was… different than before…'

…

After regaining his chaos emerald, red like his eyes, from Rouge, Shadow quickly decided that he no longer had any desire to remain at this awful party. He didn't even bother saying goodbye to Rouge or anyone else there and headed for the door.

As he was approaching the door, something ran right into him. He spun around to face the perpetrator, unsurprised to see his least favourite mobian – Sonic the Hedgehog. He growled lowly. What could this moron possibly want?

"What?"

Sonic looked up at him. He almost looked… dazed? He stared at him in surprise first, as if not expecting to see him there. Had Sonic… had he meant to run into him? It didn't look like it, but Shadow didn't care, he just wanted the annoyance away from him.

He was about to shove the still stunned hedgehog aside when he caught a sudden abnormality in the surrounding chaos energy. At first, he couldn't quite place it and he thought there was something wrong with his emerald. When he looked back at Sonic to see if he'd sensed it too, he noticed the chao on his arm. Cheese, wasn't it? That little chao that was always hanging around that young rabbit?

Sonic suddenly folded his ears back, let out a strange gagging noise, and sprinted away at incredible speeds.

The aberrant feeling left with Sonic.

'Shit.'

"What the fuck was that?"

Something was wrong with Sonic's energy and, while he tried to chaos control back to Club Rouge, he found that he couldn't do it. He didn't know what was compelling him to do it, but he had to find Sonic. Had to find out what that weird anomaly was.

He wasted no more time racing in the same direction his younger rival went and used the help of the emerald to focus in on his energy signature as he tracked him. Yes. There was no doubt in his mind, there was a problem with Sonic's chaos.

Unexpectedly, it was very easy to track down Sonic. He had stopped. Why?

…

The moon light dancing on the lake was enticing. It swirled and twirled and swayed on the surface of the water, the reflections of the stars dotting the surface morphed as the water rippled.

He forgot what he was doing in that moment. Standing here, looking out at the large expanse of water, he felt calm. Though, ordinarily, he would stay as far away from the water's edge as possible, from this distance it was soothing. Much like the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree or the shiny snow, he was entranced by the light on the water.

He sat down in the snow, Cheese cooing in his ear again. Rubbing his temples, he looked down at the snow and sighed. Why was it so hard to stay focused? And why did it feel like a piece of him died inside every time he zoned out? He hadn't noticed before, but he did indeed feel different after he lost focus. What was it that his energy was doing to him? Could it be trying to kill him or drive him insane?

Or maybe… maybe his energy wasn't trying to do anything. Maybe the frequent zoning out was an effect of whatever was messing with his energy, not the other way around. If so, what _was _fucking with him?

"Sonic?"

He froze. Shadow. That's what he had been doing. He'd been running from a pissed off Shadow. But why had he followed him? What did he want?

He flicked an ear and turned his emerald eyes to look at him, "Hmm?"

Shadow did not look happy. He didn't exactly look ticked off either though…

"What do you mean 'hmm', hedgehog? Why were you so keen on leaving back there?" Still no sign of anger, but he was speaking with a slightly annoyed tone.

Sonic looked back to the lake. He shrugged his shoulders, not really interested in telling Shadow anything.

"I should be asking _you _why you followed me." He muttered.

Shadow huffed, "Does anyone else know?"

Sonic narrowed his eyes, "Know what?"

"That there's a… problem with your energy?"

He flinched. He felt Cheese nuzzle his neck, but it didn't help him calm down. Shadow knew. He must have sensed it when he bumped into him earlier. Why did he care though? He shouldn't.

He whirled around to face Shadow again, "So?" He hissed, a little snappier than he had intended.

He was shocked at himself. It was almost as if it wasn't even him speaking. Judging by Shadow's silence, he was pretty surprised too. Where'd that even come from? A little taken aback, he turned back around and lowered his ears.

"Look, why… why do _you _care if _my _energy is fucked up?"

"Because… Because I… I don't know." It was strange to hear Shadow sound flustered – though Sonic wasn't sure if it was his tone, that he swore or if Shadow really didn't know why he followed him.

"You 'don't know'? Then why are you here?" He turned his bored expression on Shadow.

"Because I want to know what it is that's messing with your energy. And I want to know what that… **thing** was earlier." Sonic didn't like the way he said "thing."

"What 'thing'?" He raised an eyebrow at the darker hedgehog.

"That weird staring-at-me-thing."

"Huh? Oh… right." He mumbled, remembering the way he zoned out looking at his rival's eyes.

"So?" Shadow clearly wanted an answer.

Unfortunately, Sonic didn't have one for him, "I dunno! I guess I've just been zoning out a lot recently, that's all…"

Sonic was getting tired of this conversation. He stood up from his spot in the snow and turned to leave. He didn't even get that far before Shadow had grabbed his arm. Not expecting to be stopped by Shadow in such a manner, he acted on impulse and twisted his arm, shifted his weight and managed to fling Shadow off his feet and away from him at the same time. Shadow, stunned at first, shook his head and fired a chaos spear in his direction. Sonic dodged the attack with ease, but when the chaos spear lightly grazed his fur, he felt a burning sensation arise in him again. It seemed as though the exposure to the energy was making his problem worse. Out of fear of losing himself, he turned tail and ran, though he could already feel his vision shift.

A strange, hypnotic swirling filled his vision. He knew at that moment what his problem was.

He gasped, but it was cut short as he tripped and hit his head against a nearby tree. As his vision went dark, he felt anxiety consume him. He could have sworn he heard someone screaming too…

…

Sonic ran off like a coward. Of course he did.

Shadow was going to sprint after him to make him pay for throwing him to the ground when he heard an ear-piercing scream. Sonic. He sped up, running until he came across the younger hedgehog who was lying on the floor, shivering and murmuring something as he lay unconscious.

Unsure of what to do, Shadow picked him up and chaos controlled back to the house Sonic shared with Tails. He avoided the others still partying downstairs and went straight for Sonic's room. As he set him down on the bed, he wondered again why he was still bothering to care. He made a mental note to check on Sonic in the morning, perhaps even call the blue hedgehog's echidna friend, and chaos controlled back to Club Rouge.

The change in Sonic's attitude and the abnormality in his energy was worrying. Even though Shadow didn't know why he was worrying about it, he _was_ worrying. what worried him more, was that he didn't know how to help Sonic or what was even going on with him.

…

He woke up with a headache. He didn't remember what happened last night. It was Christmas, he knew that, but he wasn't sure why he didn't feel glad about that.

"mErRy ChRiStMaS, sOnIc~"

He froze. He remembered what happened now…

The swirly vision came back and he felt dizzy, felt sick. But most of all, he felt helpless. It wasn't a 'merry' Christmas at all. Far from it. If he couldn't get rid of him last time, why would trying again make any difference. Why? Why would he come back now if he'd always been there? Why on Christmas of all days…? What would happen to his friends, to Tails if he couldn't control himself?

As he lay there in shock, he felt his eyes stinging, and for the first time in years, he cried.

(This story is all over the place, there are lots of jumps and half of it probably doesn't make much sense. Give me a break, I've been trying to write this for the past three days and I just came down with a really bad cold… only a week after recovering from the last cold I had, which lasted for two weeks. Great, right?

Anyway, it's been a while since I've updated anything, but at this point it shouldn't be at all surprising. I'm trying to get better, but I've had a hard time focusing on anything recently. Much like Sonic in this story, I suppose. Probably why this story took this direction. With school, it's hard to find time to get any personal writing in, and when I do have time, I can never think how to even start. I'll still try though, and I'm determined to keep updating stories… eventually. It just takes a while to get to them. I do apologise if any of you are waiting on things to be updated, or if you're getting frustrated with me – believe me, I'm just as frustrated with myself as you probably are with me. Even if no one is reading this, or any of my other stories, I'll still update them. Just for myself if not for others, I guess.

To anyone still reading my crap on here, thank you and I really appreciate it. Merry Christmas!

~Fortune)


End file.
